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Review Summary

The sure-fire combination of Judy Canova and Joe E. Brown paid off in big laughs and excellent box-office returns in the bizarre wartime musical Joan of Ozark. While hunting quail near her home, hillbilly Judy (Canova) catches a carrier pigeon bearing a message for a ring of Nazi spies. She turns the bird over to the FBI and is lauded as a heroine-much to the dismay of Philip Munson (Jerome Cowan), whose posh New York nightclub is a cover for his Fifth Column activities. As luck would have it, theatrical agent Cliff Little (Joe E. Brown) has been sent to the Ozarks to scare up new talent for Munson's club. Little wants to sign Judy for a singing contract, but she'll have none of it until he poses as a G-Man and appoints her an honorary "G-Woman." To keep Judy happy once they're back in New York, Cliff pretends to be a spy while wandering around the nightclub-and thus it is that our hapless hero and heroine stumble upon Munson's nest of Nazis. It's hard to determine which is sillier in Joan of Ozark: Joe E. Brown's imitation of Adolf Hitler or the Keystone Kop-like climactic airplane chase. Also good for a few yocks is the closing musical number, set in "the future"-namely, 1952! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi